Report: Imf, U.s. Part Of Asia Woes

December 3, 1998|By DAVID E. SANGER The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The decision by the International Monetary Fund and the U.S. Treasury last year to push Asian nations to send their interest rates soaring was a crucial blunder that worsened the world financial crisis, the World Bank concluded Wednesday in a report of how the trouble started.

The 200-page document deliberately omitted any direct reference to the IMF or to the Treasury, which has a major voice in the IMF's decisions.

The World Bank's blow-by-blow account of a series of cascading misjudgments places much of the blame with global investors who lent money with abandon to developing nations, and on Asian officials who were eager to accumulate the cash.

But it left little doubt that in the bank's judgment the IMF and the Clinton administration shared responsibility for mishandling the initial response to the crisis.